1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a document management system, more specifically to a document management system to manage document data by using an index.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in a document management system, document data is managed by a cabinet (database). Since a cabinet is a unit for management, a type of index to attach the cabinet, an accessible user and an access right can be set and managed by the cabinet. By utilizing the cabinet on a department or project basis, management works, such as setting up of an accessible user and security of document data, can be easily performed.
Meanwhile, a user that actually uses a cabinet sometimes has to access information of another department in the course of his/her work (for example, a user in a development department accesses the cabinet of another department such as the planning department). In such a case, the following methods have been conventionally used in order to view document data managed by another department.                Document data is sent off-line without direct access of the user to the cabinet.        Every time a request to a cabinet of another department occurs, a user/access right is set.        
The first method of the above is not effective in terms of security and maintenance of document data. Therefore, considering document management in a cabinet, the second method is often used. However, as described above, each cabinet is managed by each department in its own way regarding user management and the index to attach to the cabinet. Accordingly, every time a user accesses a cabinet of another department, an additional setting of the user is required. In such a case, the user needs to access document on the basis of additional information provided by another department (that is, information different from the user's own department).
Each department may use different information as index information, for example, to refer to a product. For example, a development department may use a development name whereas a planning department may use a product name.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-067349 discloses a system in which when document data managed by a document management device is copied to another document management device, an index is also copied.
In this prior art, when document data is copied, an index value is also copied to the same index item, thereby maintaining the index value. Therefore, the same index item as before can be used to perform a search. If the same index item as that of the copy source is not defined in the copy destination, the value of the index item of the copy source is provided to another index item in the copy destination, according to a preset copy rule. However, the change of the index item of the copy destination causes a problem. That is, when the user performs a search, the user must pay attention to change the index item to be searched depending on the device of the copy destination, which makes search processing complicated.
An objective of the present invention is that when a user provides an index value to the document data, the same index is set to the document data without depending on the stored database, thereby efficiently processing document data search.